The Travelling Memory of Poland and Poles in Jewish American Community and in Israel: The Carriers of Memory and Mnemonic Forms

Israeli and American memory of Poland and Poles was shaped in different social and historical contexts, what is visible in the shape of memory and typical patterns of remembrance associated with Poles in the American and the Israeli Jewish communities. It can be observed by using the concept of travelling memory of “carriers of memory” and “mnemonic forms” of Astrid Erll. Memory of Poland traveled to the United States and to Israel with two types of memory carriers: Polish Jews both to the United States and Israel and Poles to the United States only. The identities of three memory communities formed themselves: firstly, Polish Jews in the United States, secondly, Poles in the United States and finally, Israeli Jews of Polish origins in Israel. Interaction or its lack between the Polish non-Jewish and Polish Jewish diaspora shaped the above mentioned memory communities’ identities, leading to creation of ‘mnemonic forms’: the Jewish Mother, the Jewish American Princess and the Brute Pole in the United States and Polaniya in Israel. The lack of certain mnemonic forms in Israeli collective memory might be connected with isolation of it from the Polish non-Jewish culture and different types of tensions in Israeli society. A lack of strong stereotypical figure of non-Jewish Pole in Israel created a void of memory about Poles of non-Jewish origins, that in the time of leisure tourism to Poland was filled with familiar mnemonic form of Polaniya, despite the original meaning of this figure, defined as a stereotype of Polish Jewish woman, and not a Polish woman of non-Jewish origins.